to the SGMF family. The 10th cohort began orientation on Saturday July 16, 2016, with a tour of Rio Vista Park and the Rio Hondo River, led by alumni and SGMF members Andrew Yip, Amy Wong, and Jackson Lam. The group went into the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and we were led by three U.S. Forest Service Field Rangers who are also alumni of this leadership academy — Janet Valenzuela, Irvin Barragan Ponce, and Cuauhtemoc Hernandez. This USFS Field Ranger program was created two years ago with the goal of recruiting community members to be field rangers and to interface with the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument’s culturally and linguistically diverse visitors. The academy’s success in empowering communities of color to protect our public lands can be seen in our alumni’s leadership in the field ranger program.